External USB headphone DAC/amps for Android phones are becoming a thing. The release of the LG G5 and its "Hi-Fi Plus module" is an example that has been widely publicised. What Hi-Fi has a Best DACs page that mainly lists portable audiophile kit - a few years ago the DACs in What Hi-Fi were all mains powered and large. I would personally prefer to carry a phone and a DAC rather than a phone and a portable music player mostly because of Spotify.

AudioQuest, makers of the Dragonfly, have recommended the USB Audio Player PRO (UAPP) app. The app uses its own USB Audio Driver to bypass the imperfect Android driver. On my phone I get glitching and up-sampling in Spotify with the Dragonfly and the Android driver but there are no issues with UAPP.

Proposal

Spotify developers could work with the makers of USB Audio Player PRO (UAPP) to support their USB Audio driver in Spotify. I imagine that UAPP would need to be installed before Spotify would see the driver. So I imagine UAPP's developers would help with the integration because it would lead to more sales of their app.

Listening to Tidal via USB on Android through the Tidal app, and comparing that to listening to Tidal via UAPP (bit perfect) there's a significant difference in sound quality. Far more detail and ambience via UAPP. The difference is far more noticeable that the difference between Tidal and Spotify (listening on a Mac, so elimiating the driver issue).

The ideal solution would be for Spotify to integrate the eXtream USB driver, so we wouldn't need to use the UAPP user interface. I would be happy if this would be a paid option in the Spotify app - A little bit of upsell potential for Spofity, and us users would be happy too.

Hi, I would also like to vote for Spotify to allow integration with Usb Audio Player Pro ( UAPP). I have been a paying subscriber to Spotify for years but have recently trialled Tidal Hifi out of curiosity. Not a great difference in the quality between extreme Spotify and Tidal through thier repsective apps but Tidal through UAPP using an external DAC is remarkable. Please would you do a similar deal with Extreme software and allow Spotify to be played through UAPP?

Thanks for sharing your idea @ZorkII. As this involves a 3rd party we can't comment on it or give status updates I'm afraid. We'll mark this as Not Right Now and if we have any public news on this we'll let you know here first. Thanks!